This invention rerates to silver halide color photographic materials, more particularly to silver halide color photographic materials that are protected against deterioration in photographic performance during storage that would otherwise occur on account of deleterious substances such as formaldehyde.
With a view to prevention the deterioration of photographic performance due to the reaction between photographic additives such as couplers and formaldehyde, it has been proposed to use compounds that react with formaldehyde to render it harmless (these compounds are hereinafter sometimes referred to as "aldehyde scavengers"). Examples of such compounds are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,309,492, 2,895,827, JP-B-51-23908 (the term "JP-B" as used hereunder means an "examined Japanese patent publication"), JP-B-46-34675, JP-B-63-32378, JP-A-59-19945 (the term "JP-A" as used hereunder means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), JP-A-48-39029, JP-A-57-133450, JP-A-58-150950, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,411,987, 3,811,891, 4,003,748, 4,414,309, and Research Disclosure, Vol. 101, No. 10133. However, the ability of these compounds to trap aldehyde gases is insufficient to guarantee that the deterioration in photographic performance which plagues silver halide color light-sensitive materials in commercial use today can be prevented in a satisfactory way merely by adding those compounds.
Further, if aldehyde scavengers are used in large amounts, the film characteristics of light-sensitive materials will deteriorate as typically evidenced by photographic coatings becoming vulnenerable. Since excessive use of aldehyde scavengers also causeadverse effects on the photographic performance of light-sensitive materials, there has been as inherent limit on the amount in which they can be added.
In recent years, various magenta couplers that have low reactivity, and hence high resistance, to deleterious gases such as formaldehyde have been reported. Indeed, two-equivalent couplers of the types described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,214,437, 3,253,924, 3,311,476, 3,419,391, 3,617,291, 3,926,631, 3,522,052, 3,227,554, and JP-A-56-126833 are far less sensitive to formaldehyde and other deleterious gases than four-equivalent couplers but they are by no means completely immune to the effects of those gases. Thus, even if couplers that are highly resistant to deleterious gases such as formaldehyde are used, a need still exists to use aldehyde scavengers.